Over the last 15 months, the No. 8 spot in the batting line-up has been a sensitive topic of discussion whenever the Indian team management has sat down to finalise the playing XI. It is a position that has consumed the most mind space and yielded the bare minimum returns.
Whether it is picking Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shardul Thakur in Tests, or accommodating a spin-bowling all-rounder in Washington Sundar, or more recently Naman Dhir, in white-ball cricket, these resources have invariably been underused.
For instance, Dhir was parachuted into the playing XI during West Indies’ ongoing white-ball tour of India. He has earned his stripes as a batter, but both Shubman Gill in ODIs and Shreyas Iyer in T20Is have primarily used him for his off-spinning abilities. While he has looked like a spinner who can effectively chip in to make up for the fifth bowler, the true purpose of his inclusion is yet to be established.
In this scenario, Kuldeep Yadav has found himself caught in the crossfire. After the end of the ODI series, Gill was blunt in his admission that the team management was willing to try as many options as possible to find someone who could bat and bowl at No. 8.
He categorically mentioned that Anshul Kamboj and Auqib Nabi would remain in the mix because of their batting skills. The fact is that the No. 8 batter has barely managed to make any impact with the ball. And by the time the No. 8 comes out to bat, he has very little room to alter the course of the game.
Yet, it appears that the team management is obsessed with the idea that the balance of the XI depends on the player who bats at No. 8.
The majority of the matches India have lost during this period have been because of the excessive burden on the batters to put up a score well beyond par in the prevailing conditions. The question that arises here is whether India should consider bringing in a specialist attacking bowler who could restrict the opposition to a lower score, especially on the batting-friendly pitches at home.
India’s problems stem from the fact that the team does not have a genuine all-rounder besides the injury-prone Hardik Pandya, who can be equally effective with the ball as the third seamer in white-ball cricket and as a batter who can comfortably be sent in to bat in the middle order.
Pandya’s back-up project, Reddy, has shown flashes of promise as a lower-order finisher, but his bowling cannot make up for the absence of a third seamer. It is an irony that a position traditionally meant for a specialist bowler is now being decided on the basis of batting skills.
India enjoyed a potent pace-bowling attack until the 2023 World Cup, complemented by established spinners. Gill did not fail to mention how much that makes a difference to a line-up. Evidently, India’s white-ball set-up does not have that luxury at the moment.
While the next marquee T20 assignment is two years away, the team management does not have much time to find the right combination before next year’s ODI World Cup in Africa.
Whether it is picking Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shardul Thakur in Tests, or accommodating a spin-bowling all-rounder in Washington Sundar, or more recently Naman Dhir, in white-ball cricket, these resources have invariably been underused.
For instance, Dhir was parachuted into the playing XI during West Indies’ ongoing white-ball tour of India. He has earned his stripes as a batter, but both Shubman Gill in ODIs and Shreyas Iyer in T20Is have primarily used him for his off-spinning abilities. While he has looked like a spinner who can effectively chip in to make up for the fifth bowler, the true purpose of his inclusion is yet to be established.
In this scenario, Kuldeep Yadav has found himself caught in the crossfire. After the end of the ODI series, Gill was blunt in his admission that the team management was willing to try as many options as possible to find someone who could bat and bowl at No. 8.
He categorically mentioned that Anshul Kamboj and Auqib Nabi would remain in the mix because of their batting skills. The fact is that the No. 8 batter has barely managed to make any impact with the ball. And by the time the No. 8 comes out to bat, he has very little room to alter the course of the game.
Yet, it appears that the team management is obsessed with the idea that the balance of the XI depends on the player who bats at No. 8.
The majority of the matches India have lost during this period have been because of the excessive burden on the batters to put up a score well beyond par in the prevailing conditions. The question that arises here is whether India should consider bringing in a specialist attacking bowler who could restrict the opposition to a lower score, especially on the batting-friendly pitches at home.
India’s problems stem from the fact that the team does not have a genuine all-rounder besides the injury-prone Hardik Pandya, who can be equally effective with the ball as the third seamer in white-ball cricket and as a batter who can comfortably be sent in to bat in the middle order.
Pandya’s back-up project, Reddy, has shown flashes of promise as a lower-order finisher, but his bowling cannot make up for the absence of a third seamer. It is an irony that a position traditionally meant for a specialist bowler is now being decided on the basis of batting skills.
India enjoyed a potent pace-bowling attack until the 2023 World Cup, complemented by established spinners. Gill did not fail to mention how much that makes a difference to a line-up. Evidently, India’s white-ball set-up does not have that luxury at the moment.
While the next marquee T20 assignment is two years away, the team management does not have much time to find the right combination before next year’s ODI World Cup in Africa.